


Thirds

by harble



Series: Intervals [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Bisexual John Marston, Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 13:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harble/pseuds/harble
Summary: Abigail and John talk about their past.Set post-canon, pre-RDR1. Rated as explicit just to be safe; no true porn here.





	1. Chapter 1

“Do you remember when Bill set Javier’s tent on fire while he slept?” Abigail’s voice cut through the darkness of the room. John let out a hiss of a laugh.

“Yes - Javier told that pretty saloon girl in Blackwater that Bill was diseased.” He laughed again, and this time Abigail joined in. 

“And -" She paused to giggle “- and Dutch was so mad he made Bill sleep without a bedroll or a tent… How long even was that? Probably until we had to run from that camp.”

“Bill always was an unpredictable bastard.”

“And very sensitive.” He glanced over in time to see her playfully smirk as she said it.

They were lying about a foot apart on their bed, naked and still breathing heavily, basking in the afterglow. John reached over to lazily stroke her arm, from shoulder all the way to her finger tips.

“And Arthur put out the fire,” she started again. 

“Of course, just like him.”

They both smiled at each other briefly.

“He had soot on him after that from head to toe, and Miss Grimshaw had to force him to throw out the clothes he was wearing.”

They always talked like this, after. Without fail. John tried to make it last as long as he could every time; it was just too sweet to hear Abigail talk with fondness about the life they used to lead, and the people that they used to call family. Outside of their bed, outside of the happy, languid bubble they were currently in, she only let herself remember the bad. He didn’t blame her for it - most of the time.

John propped up onto his side and draped his arm over her waist.

“Remember Jack left his favorite book there in Blackwater when we ran, and Arthur brought him a new one?" 

Abigail smiled. “I forgot that. I remember how he hated reading so much at first. Nearly drove Hosea crazy.” 

“Now he won’t stop reading.” 

“John,” she stopped to lick her lips, seeming to be considering something, “what was it like before I was there?”

“In the gang? I’ve told you before.”

“Tell me again.” She reached up to trace his scars absently.

“It was much smaller then… we started to take on more men once I was grown up a little - sixteen or so.” She propped herself up on her side as well, and John dragged his hand up to rest on the side of her rib cage. She shivered. “Dutch was a born leader; he never had to figure that part out. He did have to figure out raising me, though. And Arthur. Arthur was wild far later than he should have been, by age. I think Hosea went grey because of the way he drank.” He smiled and rubbed small circles into her skin with his thumb.

“Us girls used to always gossip. You know, who had been with the most people around camp, who was best, all that.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Well,” John lowered his voice into a playful, rough whisper, “you probably won on both counts there.”

“I oughtta punish you for that talk.” She opted to pull softly at his hair instead. He made a mock-scared expression to pull a giggle out of her, but the answering laugh was edgy, almost nervous. John narrowed his eyes. 

“Tell me some of this gossip, then.” 

“Oh no, it’s far too shocking for the likes of you.” She smoothed at his eyebrow with her hand, then watched as he pouted slightly at her words. “Fine! Fine… Well, I’m sure you know, Dutch and Grimshaw used to…”

“Ugh, don’t mention that, I was unlucky enough to witness that once.”

“You never told me that.” He nodded with a haunted look in his eye, and she giggled. “What else…”

“Worst fuck in camp?”

“Bill. Or Micah.”

He shrugged - obvious answers.

“Best fuck in camp?” He held up a finger when he saw her smiling. “Besides you.”

She huffed, then said, “Well the girls always said it was Javier, but I’m not so sure. He did have a good tongue, though.”

“Smallest prick?” That got her to laugh. “Well that would have to be you, Marston.” He slapped her on the thigh playfully. She blushed prettily at that, and he leaned in to kiss her neck softly, just to hear her sigh.

“If we were lucky, sometimes Grimshaw even used to join in,” she stroked a hand through his hair as she talked. He tried to distract her by opening his mouth and nipping at her collarbone, but she pressed on. “We’d swap stories, laugh and make fun. Not much manners to gang women, after all.” She pushed him away softly and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. “I always wondered… None of us ever had any stories about Arthur.” She breathed in a little unevenly. “I always thought I might know someone who did. Have those types of stories, that is.”

John froze as her eyes slid toward him and rested there, waiting.

“What do you mean?”

Her mouth hardened into a line. “John… If you don’t want to talk, we don’t gotta.”

The air constricted around him. A strange sound came from his throat, like he was trying to reply but forgot how to speak. He closed his eyes quickly.

“I didn’t know for sure… I still don’t. I always hoped you’d tell me sometime, but you never have. And I just want… I want to know you, all about you. Everything.”

Her voice was fragile in a way John rarely heard. He grabbed at the bridge of his nose. No good staying quiet when she clearly already had him pinned.

“How the fuck did you know?” 

There was a moment of silence. He kept his eyes closed, waiting.

“There was one night, right when I first got to camp. I was still watching all the men pretty carefully, trying to figure out my place there, trying to figure out what you all wanted.” John sat up slowly, watching her as she talked, his eyes boring into her. “I was looking for you. I already like you best. And I noticed that both you and Arthur were gone after dinner. I sat up in my bunk, waiting for you to come back. No one else seemed to notice.” 

John could see the scene too well. The campfire sending up embers, and he and Arthur, stealing off to the woods like horny kids. They were rarely so careless, but it had happened once or twice.

“When you did come back, you both looked guilty and… excuse me, but pretty well fucked. You crept right into your bunks without looking at each other.” John could feel his face turning shades of red. “After that, I watched you two more closely. But I never really saw much else. I thought sometimes I imagined it. And quickly after that you showed me you weren’t too queer to like women.” 

She was clearly attempting to tease him, but John was too mortified to take it that way. He pushed himself off the bed and stood up, crossing quickly to the dresser to splash himself with water from the basin.

“Maybe you’re right, Abigail. Maybe,” his voice cracked, which added an unintended tone of desperation, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I been with a lot of people, John. I ain’t brought it up to judge you. And I’m one of the best listeners there is.”

“You don’t underst-,” he started, then stopped himself. He stayed facing the wall. “I’m ashamed.”

“I used to know lotsa men that’s done it.”

“No - it’s not that. Not really.” John hung his head as he gave up his last possible excuse. It was too late; he couldn’t lie about it now. “We - it wasn’t constant, you know. Just when - just when we needed to. But,” he turned around slowly, “we didn’t really stop, not ’til I ran off.”

He watched as surprise settled on her; she brought up a hand to her chest, as if in pain. John waited. She didn’t scream. Didn’t throw him a blanket and tell him to sleep on the couch, like she had last week when he let Jack shoot bottles with his old pistol.

“Stop standing there completely naked and dripping water. You’ll catch your death like that in the winter.”

He climbed back in next to her without looking her full in the face.

“Arthur wanted to stop when we found out about Jack coming, but we never really managed to. Not ’til I left.”

She let out a long humming sound and sat up, crossing her legs under the blankets. He knew she hadn’t missed the beginning of that sentence - _Arthur_ wanted to stop. But he was never one to lie.

“He never did forgive you for running, did he?”

“You and him, I was sure one of you would kill me when I came crawling back, but I was never sure as to which.”

That got her to laugh again, and John finally looked at her full in the face, his eyes wide.

“Oh don’t you look like that. Neither of us were the picture of faithfulness before Jack came along. I never thought you was. And you knew I wasn’t.”

“And after Jack?” John couldn’t help but prod an open wound. It was his nature. 

She glared a little at him. “It doesn’t exactly fill me with joy to think of you and him off in the mountains fucking while I kept a baby in that godforsaken camp.” John gaped at her words and started to speak, but she held up her hand to stop him. “But I’ve always had this feeling. And I guess I tried to make my peace with it before asking you.” 

“It was… complicated.” 

“When did it start?”

“I think I was about twenty?”

“That late? Really?”

“Yeah - well first I was just a kid, then he was busy with Mary and all that. And when it finally started it was out of the blue. Neither of us had any idea it was going to happen until…”

“Until it just did?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” 

“So that makes -“ She counted on her fingers for a moment “Almost three years, total.” A small sort of pain crept into her voice.

John started to breathe heavily - delayed panic washed over him. He suddenly remembered one of Dutch’s old flings, Hannah, whom he once found gasping for air, crouched on the forest floor about one hundred paces away from camp. He ran up to her, asking what was wrong, and she just gripped his shoulder and whispered, “I’m having a panic, is all.” She heaved like that for a while, clutching his shoulder with white-hot intensity. She took a couple of minutes to calm, and once she did, she stood up slowly and whispered, so he could barely hear - “He’s done with me.”

And sure enough, she was gone within the week, run out of camp.

He felt like that now - a true empathy for that girl suddenly crashing around him as he gasped for air and drew his knees in close to his chest.

Abigail’s eyes darted, and drew closer to him. She was clearly at a loss for what to do.

“John - John,” her voice was quiet but a little panicked as well, “John everything is alright. I’m not mad.” She paused. “I’m not that mad, anyways.”

Truthful to a fault, the pair of them. He clenched his eyes closed.

“I mean, would you even recognize me if I wasn’t at least a little riled up after you tell me that?”

That earned a shivery smile.

“I’m so sorry, Abby.” He ground into his eyes with the heel of his palm. “It weren’t the right thing to do.”

She made small shushing noises and managed to get him to lie back down, covering him with blankets. She stroked his arm slowly. They were quiet for several minutes, both listening to the trees rustle slightly outside and to John’s breathing slowly even out.

“Let’s not talk about this any more for now.” His eyes slid up to meet hers. “I feel lucky, John. Lucky to have you now.” Her emphasis fell on the last word.

His pulse calmed almost as soon as those words were spoken. He felt vulnerable, but at once a wave of catharsis swept through him, scalp to sole. He sighed. 

“Tell me more,” he croaked.

“More what?”

“More funny stories. Or gossip.”

She brushed hair out of her face.

“Don’t you have any, Marston?”

He smiled at her. Of course she wouldn’t give him any slack, even now. He felt the familiar warmth of love spread under his collarbone and pull deep in his stomach.

“Hosea used to cut our hair.” Abigail snorted in response. “No, really. Until Arthur finally outright refused. And even then Hosea still cut my hair.”

“Please tell me there is some evidence of this.”

He laughed a little. “No, no, I don’t think so. Not unless Arthur drew it.”

“And the more you struggled…?”

“The worse it got,” he finished with a smile. “I had bald spots, jagged spots. Once it was so bad I ran off and sulked in the wilderness for a while. I think I was fifteen at that point.”

“I can picture it.”

“I think,” he lifted his head to pull his long hair into a more orderly bundle, “that’s why I have all this. I’m still scared every time I sit down for a haircut.”

That got Abigail really laughing again. She shifted and landed right next to him, nuzzling to his side.

“That was a real good one today, Marston.” It took him a few seconds to realize she was talking about sex.

“Any time.” He watched her carefully, wondering where her mind was going.

“Any time?” She looked at him mischievously. It pierced right through to his heart. “Show me again what you were doing with your mouth.”

“Jesus, woman, what would that be, your third time today?” Relief mixed with admiration washed through him. He shoved her playfully onto her back, straddled her, and grasped at her hair, pulling it back with the right amount of roughness to make her gasp.

“Don’t be jealous, just ‘cause men are only good for one.”

He paused, inches away from her lips. “You sure? You want this now?”

She closed the distance, but instead of kissing him, bit down on his lower lip and pulled at it with her teeth before releasing him.

“It’s always better when we’re a bit pissed anyway.”

She pushed his head down gently while he chuckled. He kissed down her body, but paused at her hips to murmur, “Are you sure?”

“John.” He looked up at her face. “John, please.”

The begging convinced him. It always did. He rubbed his face into her skin, and she jumped with shock as he gave her a sudden squeeze where her thigh met her bottom. He smiled in triumph.

“And it’ll be my fourth, by the way,” she said between gasps as John kissed lower and lower.

The third, it seemed, had finally given her the courage to ask about Arthur Morgan.


	2. Chapter 2

Weeks passed without Abigail mentioning the newest ghost from their past. It made John nervous for her to have something on him without throwing it back at him at a moment’s notice. Abigail always fought like it would be her last fight, even if it was just about who left the door open during a storm, or who left the eggs on the counter in the sun.

(John - it was always John that did those stupid things.)

The utter lack of any mention of their conversation from that night was torturing him.

Maybe that’s what she was going for - for the silence to slowly drive him mad.

His mind raced with similar thoughts as he paced around the porch of his home, waiting for Abigail and Jack to get home from Blackwater. Of course, thinking about his wife’s hypothetical, boiling rage also led him to think about the source of it. His mind helpfully supplied an image of Arthur, 31 and healthy and disheveled from a hunt, winking at him from across camp as he strode in and threw a deer carcass onto the ground.

_Stop._

John tried to reign himself in, but Arthur crossed to the wash bucket, still holding his gaze, and splashed himself thoroughly, making a small show for him. He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows as if to say _did yeh miss me, John-boy?_

That day in camp, John had been missing him. Much like he was missing him today.

“Pa!”

He snapped out of it fast as Jack and Abigail approached, climbing off the wagon, smiles on both their faces.

“Jack! Happy birthday. How was your lunch in town?”

“It was great.” Abigail answered for him. “I was just telling him that it might be time for a present.” She looked at him questioningly.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “it’s all ready for you in there.”

Jack ran up the stairs with an excited look on his face. John smiled. He looked for a moment like a kid again, instead of a moody half-teen.

Abigail and John filed in the door behind him, and she whispered conspiratorially, “Let’s hope he likes it.”

“He better.”

Inside the large front room of the house, against the left wall, there was a tiny, upright piano. The wood shined in the light pouring through the windows, and Jack was standing, transfixed in the glare.

“Well, come on then, what do you think? We always hear you talking about music these days, listening to records and such. Thought you might like to learn some.”

Jack turned on his heel and rewarded them both with a grin. He pulled the little bench out and sat, eyeing the keys, and daring to plunk a few.

“Uncles going to help you.” Abigail cut in, raising her voice a little as Jack began to test all the keys. “He says he knows how to play.”

“Hey now, girl, no need to sound so dubious,” Uncle smiled as he entered and crossed the room to Jack, dusty books in hand. “Do you want to start now?”

Jack nodded eagerly.

John saw how Abigail was smiling at the scene, tight-lipped and barely concealing tears. He pulled back on her shoulders and sat with her softly on the couch, to watch. No need to tell her he paid for the piano with bounty money. What she didn’t know, what kept him sane, wouldn’t hurt her. At least he was on the right side of the law.

She wiped at her eyes, and he smiled, kissing her cheek gently as Uncle began, “Okay, boy-o, notes go from A to G. And this here is middle C.” Uncle led him slowly through the names of the notes, and Abigail regained her composure. John was watching his son’s posture intently, watching how a little thrill went through him each time his slurring teacher let him push a key in. A couple of minutes passed, both parents watching their child. Thirteen years old - unbelievable. He shuddered to think of himself at that age.

He didn’t notice Abigail lean in until she was at his ear.

“Tell me what it was like.”

He just wrinkled his brow and gave a small “Hmm?” in response. He kept his eyes on Jack.

“What it was like with him.”

John whipped around to her. He knew what she meant. She smiled with a flirty air and a slight blush.

“That’s what I was really trying to get at that night. We always gossiped, us girls. I always felt like I knew so much about everyone. But not him.”

John stared at her. He knew Jack and Uncle couldn’t hear across the room and through the discordant notes, but he was still stunned.

She giggled evilly at his expression. “I remember how he used to look, striding back into camp after being gone for days and days at a time. Like he owned the place.”

Had she read his mind? That image from before - healthy and wonderfully mussed - sprang back into his head.

“Ugh, and his ass.”

That really got a reaction out of him - a strangled, indignant sort of noise.

“Abigail,” he whispered desperately, “we shouldn’t - we can’t speak that way about him. He’s gone.”

She grinned at his flared nostrils. 

“As if you didn’t go and do something much nastier to earn that piano.” His eyes widened, and she put on a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m hardly speaking ill of the dead, John. I would say I’m doing the opposite.”

Jack played C Major up the octave, and back down again.

“You’re a natural, Jackie.” Uncle opened up an old book with lines and notes drawn all down each page. He launched into the basics of reading music, but John didn’t hear. Abigail was back at his ear.

“I always knew there was something about him. No wonder Mary-Beth could never seal the deal.”

John shot her a look, happy to disappoint her expectations.

“He liked women just fine.”

“Are you —“

“I’m quite sure, thanks for asking. And,” he let a smile play around his lips, “he did look nice when he came back.”

They giggled together for a moment. John could hardly conceive - Abigail wanted to laugh about it with him. Wanted to share a secret rather than a fight.

He smirked with a feeling he’d never thought he’d have. “You’re jealous, ain’t you?” This earned a glare, but he could tell she was happy he was playing along.

“No!”

“Hmm.. funny, that’s not what is sounds like to me.”

“Well,” she tucked a stray hair behind her ear, “I don’t think I would have said no, if he was offerin’. Oh, please tell me a little about it.”

“Nosy!”

She nodded in unabashed agreement, which made him lean in for a small kiss. He pulled back and tried to think of what to say.

“You knew him - always deflecting, pulling on that hat and trying not to look people in the eye. He was like that alone too, sometimes. Cautious, and scared. Like I was going to hurt him.”

“You did, I guess.”

He nodded slowly. “I know that.”

“What was it like, when it was good?”

He made a small hum in reply, considering what he could say without alarming her. “With Arthur I always half felt like I was lucky to get out alive.” He thought for a moment. “But in a nice way.”

She laughed at that and blushed deeper.

“And,” he dropped his voice to a deadly whisper, “his ass looked even better out of the jeans.” He raised his eyebrows at her and made little grabbing motions in the air with both hands. She gaped in half-fake, half-real shock. John shot up off the couch, raising his arms in time to block the pillow she hurled at him.

“John.. Marston!” She laughed and sprang after him, around to the back of the couch and then back to the front. She gave a little squeal when he suddenly turned around caught her by her waist and held her in place. They were laughing in earnest now, both flushed and a bit giddy.

Jack and Uncle sat staring at them.

“Uh, sorry Jack. You keep on going there. Sounds like you’re doin’ well.”

He dragged Abigail outside by her wrist, back out to the porch, finding her mouth with his as they moved.


	3. Chapter 3

Six weeks after Jack’s thirteenth birthday, Abigail was sitting at her kitchen table, sipping coffee slowly and watching the sun come up through the window, thinking about that day. They had fucked against the barn after rushing outside, her legs wrapped around his hips, him pinning her to the wall and gasping into each thrust. She thought about it often now, especially on the nights when he didn’t come home to warm her bed.

And John hadn’t been home in quite a while.

The sweat on his brow and the rub of stubble on her neck, the rough of the barn behind her and the sweet, satisfied look he had given her after - she took a sip, then another, thinking of pleasantness rather than pain. 

After that day, Jack’s birthday, Abigail had started to ask him teasing, quiet questions when they caught a moment alone. Nothing too serious, ever, just enough to get John nervous. She liked the flash in his eye when she brought it up out of the blue, and the way it made him blush to talk about. Nothing made John blush, nothing. But one mention of that man and his cheeks turned red as an apple.

_“Who started it?”_

_“Me, of course. Young and ready to go and reckless.”_

She never asked too many questions at once, and they never talked about it for long. Abigail sensed John’s reluctance to tell too much, to give too much away too fast. It was his relationship, after all, his love. (He never used that word, but she knew it was the right one from the way he talked.) 

She figured she owed him at least a sliver of privacy. 

Just a sliver, though.

_“Closest to camp you ever did it?”_

_“Parties… parties were a challenge. Arthur, drunk - he’s a force of nature. I’m surprised he never ended up sucking me for the whole world to see.”_

Sometimes he got back at her, too. If she stepped a bit too far with her questions, he would ask about past customers or (once, when she had asked a few too many questions about Arthur’s dick) even Dutch. She didn’t dignify such questions with responses, not least because she knew John would hate to hear them.

_“Is it different, with a man?”_

_“I dunno, I’ve only ever been with the one. I guess it’s different than a woman, yeah. In the same way one women might be different from another. Same general idea, though.”_

_“Well see, now I think you just don’t want to tell me who was givin’ it and who was takin’ it.”_

Her curiosity had slowly been satisfied and replaced by a sickly sweet feeling of intimacy. She knew she should be wounded by what John had told her - mortified and outraged and betrayed. But she couldn’t find those emotions within herself, even when (like now, at her kitchen table with no John to be found) she went searching for them. Arthur had been her friend, too, after all. More like family, really. That year John was gone, he had held Jack and played with him, listened to her fretting and dried her tears, even when the other men teased. 

And this whole discovery helped explain the guilty, doe-eyed looks she used to catch Arthur giving her out of the corner of her eye, way back when. Especially after John ran off. She sipped at her cup of coffee, lips turning up at the corners. She had seen Arthur choke men with his bare hands, take their money, and leave them to rot in the sun. But fuck John behind her back? That was enough to make him fret.

Not fret enough to stop, of course.

It didn’t matter though, not anymore. Now, when she looked at John, she could see a kind of weakness in him she never knew was there, a weakness that he shared with her and trusted her with, and it filled her entire chest up with warm, radiating love.

_“What was your favorite part?”_

_“The talking.”_

_“John Marston, don’t you lie to me.”_

_“I ain’t. I knew him. And he knew me.”_

Just like the first and second time, their little chats often led to fighting, laughing, or fucking - or some combination of the three. Just to see John - her John - drop his eyes in shame, just to see him crack a small smile as he remembered, it did things to her.

And they were happy together, with Jack and Uncle, on their hopeless little ranch in the middle of nowhere, America. As happy as they’d ever been in their entire lives.

Sunlight peaked through the window, and she tried not to sigh, not to feel sorry for herself. The sunrise made it nine days since John had left home, mumbling about a shave and some errands in Blackwater. It was the longest he’d been gone since she and Jack arrived at Beecher’s Hope. Gone - without ceremony, without warning.

She drained her coffee and stood up. Stretching her neck as she went, she stepped outside to take her morning walk around the property. On an entirely different sort of day, John might’ve joined her.

One foot in front of the other. Dust blew through the air and into her hair and clothes. It hardly phased her anymore. Dust seemed to be their main export at Beecher’s Hope. She watched the chickens cluck and peck around their coop, and kept on going, around to the barn, to the blank spot of wall where he had fucked her just right until she came, hard, legs clenching around him, and screamed his name.

Rotten, no good bastard.

She continued around the property, stopping every once in a while to lean on the fence and watch the horizon.

“Hey, girlie what’re you thinkin’ out here?”

She jumped and whipped around; it was just Uncle, hat askew and stumbling. He leaned on the fence next to her and mimicked her posture. They watched in silence as a hawk dove to the ground and flew away with a fat mouse clutched in its talons.

“He’ll be comin’ back any time now.” She didn’t reply. “Any time at all now, you hear?”

She kicked her foot at the dirt.

“Where do they always go?”

The sun was rising up into the sky now, and it beat down on her dark hair, unseasonably bright. She started to sweat.

“What d’you mean, Abby?”

“Where do men always go?” She scowled. “My whole life’s been men leaving and coming back only when they damn well please. Where the fuck do they all go for so long?”

“Abigail -“

“Back in the gang, you remember? Those fuckin’ men would leave for who knows how long and stride back in. Maybe not all of them, though. And maybe not in one piece. Just the price we had to pay, for freedom.” She spat the last word out.

“Girl,” he talked low, like he was calming a horse, “he ain’t left. He’ll come back soon, you’ll see.”

“And John, that useless wretch, can’t never give it up. The goin’. And the freedom, I’d guess. Always leavin’ women to deal with the hard stuff. The everyday stuff.”

Uncle kept his mouth shut at that.

“Jack’ll leave too, eventually. And what will I be left with? A used up body and a good for nothing wasteland of a ranch.”

Her eyes were stinging in spite of herself. She rubbed at her face with the back of her hand, turned away from Uncle, and marched off, back towards the house.

Inside, Jack was already at the piano, dutifully practicing his scales. She had half expected him to give up after the novelty had worn off, but he was turning out to be a good student. Perhaps too good a student for the quality of teacher Uncle turned out to be.

Abigail felt better after a little yelling, as she often did. She stood in the doorway and watched Jack practice.

“Mind if I sit next to you, baby?”

“Sure, ma.”

“What’re you learning lately?”

He played idly at the keys. “Mostly just scales, and how to read music. You’ve gotta be able to recognize note patterns to really be able to play well.” He pointed at clusters of notes on the staff. “These are intervals here, for me to practice.”

He reached out and grabbed her wrist, then placed her hand on the keys next to his right hand.

He pointed with his left. “See this is a single, whole note.” He played. “Then this is a second.” He pointed at two black points clustered tight together, and played two adjacent keys at once. “They’re too close together to really sound good, but Uncle says you can make interesting songs that way.”

Abigail copied him, and wrinkled her nose a little at the sound.

“And this one here’s a third. Two notes with one missin’ in the middle.” He played, and she copied. “It sounds better, see? And if you add another one on top,” his pinky dropped down on a key, “you get a chord. This one’s C major.” She played her own and smiled.

“You’re a good teacher, Jack.”

“Ma,” he looked at his hands, “where’d he go?”

She patted his shoulder. Mean words bubbled up, but got stuck in her throat. He began to practice his scales again.

“I don’t know. When he gets back, I’ll let you ask him before I kill him.”

He didn’t laugh or even smile, but then she wasn’t fully joking.

“Keep on practicin’, Jack.”

She stood up from the bench and moved towards the kitchen. Might as well start her day. Day nine of what might be the rest of her life without John. She swept the floors, cleaned the kitchen, tidied the pantry. She fed the chickens, mucked a few stalls, and forced Uncle drive into town for some supplies. The day was hot, but the work was satisfying. Jack helped her without being asked, too. He was turning out to be a good kid.

She was considering starting the laundry, walking towards the back door of the house with her hands on her hips, when she stopped dead in her tracks. There, leaning against the wall next to the stoop, was John Marston, clear as day.

He was filthy - white shirt dirtied to a sickly brown color, hair plastered to his forehead - and his skin was pale. He sat with his back straight against the wall, one leg bent and one straight. His head was lolled to one side, mouth hanging open slightly.

She picked up her skirt and leapt over to him, landing on her knees in dirt next to him.

“John! John.” It was an urgent whisper. Her hands cradled his head.

His eyes cracked open, then blinked slowly. He made a garbled sound that ended with “…gail”.

“John.” She gripped his chin with one hand and shook him by the shoulder with the other.

He smiled slightly. “I’m awake, I promise.” He cracked his eyes again to prove it. “I must admit, though, I’ve had better days.”

“John, you had better either die or tell me where the fuck you been.”

He laughed, a croaking, dry sound. “I just wanted -“ He cut himself off. “I went to Blackwater, like I told you. I was there, and I just thought… I just wanted to go see it. To go see his grave.”

Abigail sat back, taking it in.

“It’s only a two day trip there and back, three with bad weather or bad luck.” He scratched at his beard with dirty fingernails. “But I had both of those, and more.”

She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t entirely sure whether he was alright or not. He had a deathly pallor, and he was clutching his left arm suspiciously to his side. And his voice sounded sad. Sadder than she’d heard in a while.

“There was a storm in the heartlands like I’ve never seen before. And after I got there, I just got mad. It ain’t never made me mad before to be there. But this time, I don’t know.”

“So you went to a bar and got in a fight.”

He looked at her with a pained expression and nodded.

“I guess people don’t change that much after all.”

“So then what? You’ve told me about three days, maybe four.”

“Well, I was in jail for five days after that.”

“Jesus, John. What did you do?”

“It was just a bar brawl. They wanted someone to put away for it. I was the out-of-towner. There was a lot of damage to the saloon.”

“And then you booked it back here.”

He nodded.

“His grave, huh?” His lips quirked in response. “Do you want me to stop asking about it so much?” Something like guilt was blossoming in her chest.

He shook his head slowly. “It ain’t that, Abigail. I didn’t really let myself think about it for so long. And now it’s all back, the good and the bad.” He leaned his head back against the wall. He really did look like shit. “But I like talkin’ about the good with you.”

She clenched her jaw. “If you needed time, you shoulda told me.”

“It was only supposed to be three days, honest. Was gonna bring back a big elk skin or something fancy for you.” With his right hand, he thumbed at a book on his lap. “I been reading his journal. It’s the one he got around the time we ran from Blackwater.”

She eyed the book a little suspiciously.

“You don’t gotta tell me what’s in there. If it’s private.” She pet at his lank hair.

“He’s says he oughtta’ve married you.”

“Stop your lying, John.”

“He does.” He traced his hand over loopy handwriting. “The same place he talks about taking Jack fishing out near Valentine.”

She smiled a little, remembering.

“Well, that’s a little ironic, don’t you think? Considering?”

“Let the man have his affections, Abigail. And there’s this nice sketch of you.” There it was, plain as day, her almost a decade ago, looking worried. She smiled a little. John licked his lips. “I miss him.”

She put her forehead to his and sighed.

He shifted, and she caught a glimpse of his left arm and gasped a little. There was a large, angry cut up the side of it, from the his wrist all the way up past his elbow. Parts were cut deep; she could see flashes of gristle.

“Jesus.”

“Ah - yeah.” He clutched at it, bringing it onto his lap for her to see. “I camped out near Tall Trees last night, and a couple of stray Skinners caught me unawares this morning. One managed to slice me pretty good before I shot ‘em.”

“You might need a doctor, John.”

He scoffed a little, and motioned for her to help him up. She stood up first, then hauled him up by his good arm. They limped up the small set of stairs together, into the door and quickly into their bedroom. She helped him recline on the bed.

Abigail touched his cheek gently, feeling the scars there.

“We should go sometime, all three of us,” she whispered.

He just looked at her.

“Three days ain’t that long of a trip. Jack’ll like to see it. And I never did get to properly say thank you.”

“Jack hardly even remembers him.”

“That ain’t true.”

They clasped hands for a moment.

“I’m going to go get some gauze, and tell Jack to run some hot water.” She turned to the door, then back. “Don’t you leave, John Marston.”

He just smiled weakly. “I’ll be here, promise.”

Abigail decided to hold him to it.


End file.
